


Snapshots Left on the Negative

by CyPanache



Category: Parks and Recreation
Genre: F/M, Future Fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2011-11-28
Updated: 2011-12-10
Packaged: 2017-10-26 16:02:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 13,101
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/285185
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CyPanache/pseuds/CyPanache
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Simple version? Five conversations Leslie and Ben have in formal wear. (But of course life is always more complicated than that).</p><p>[Written Post 3x08 - "Camping"]</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is my response to [](http://sweetiegrrl2346.livejournal.com/profile)[ **sweetiegrrl2346**](http://sweetiegrrl2346.livejournal.com/) 's prompt for Hiatus Fest [here](http://community.livejournal.com/leslie_ben/48785.html?thread=204433#t204433).  She asked for Ben and Leslie in formal wear so that Ben could admire Leslie in her beautiful gown.  I wound up writing it entirely from Leslie's pov and turned it into . . . well this. Also a **huge**  thanks to [ **laughingduchess**](http://laughingduchess.livejournal.com/) and [**allthingsholy**](http://allthingsholy.livejournal.com/) who are an amazing betas and had a serious hand in shaping this story.

**i. April and Andy’s Dinner Party**

April and Andy insist everyone come to their party in evening wear because they want it to be “classy and awesome.” They serve pizza and Buffalo wings on paper plates, and champagne in crystal flutes April steals from her parents china cabinet when they realize it’s either that or straight from the bottle because Andy forgot to get paper cups.

This should pretty much tell you everything you need to know about the evening.

Oh, one more thing.

Ben kisses her in the upstairs bathroom.

She’s not entirely sure how that happens.

Really, she’s not. She remembers the champagne. Remembers the fairly epic game of charades. Remembers the buffalo wings . . .

Oh wait, no, that’s how.

For the record, her and buffalo wings and five glasses of champagne _and_ charades . . . maybe not the best combination.

She finds him in the upstairs bathroom after almost walking in on Jerry in the downstairs one ( _don’t ask, she doesn’t want to relive it_ ). Ben’s already shed his suit jacket and tie and even in the candlelight April’s using to hide the fact she didn’t really do pre-party cleaning, Leslie can still see the bright red smears where she flipped the entire plate of wings onto him.

“Hey, I found seltzer.” She offers feebly, because honestly it feels pretty paltry in the face of such absolute destruction.

“Thanks.”

If you asked her later she wouldn’t be able to tell you why she doesn’t just leave it with him. Why she proceeds to flick on the bathroom lights, grab a clean towel from the rack, and start carefully blotting the front of his shirt with the seltzer water. Maybe it’s the champagne or maybe it’s him or maybe it’s just that Leslie’s never been one to leave other people to clean up her messes.

Ben doesn’t seem to mind. Relinquishes control without protest and just stands there watching her with that funny smile he gets sometimes, like he’s not quite sure what to think of her, like he’s half-convinced she might just be crazy and he can’t decide if that’s a bad thing.

“I am _so_ sorry.”

“Hey, no I get it. Yellowstone National Park. Old Faithful was really your only charade option.”

“It was.” She nods emphatically, and then because that makes the room spin just a little bit, drops her forehead to his shoulder to steady herself. “It is also possible I am too drunk to be safely playing national landmark charades.”

“Oh, so you’re blaming the champagne now?”

She lulls her head to the side, slanting her gaze up to him to ask with all seriousness, “Think I could get away with it?”

“I don’t know. I really liked this shirt.”

Absently she curls her fingers against the fabric, and nods in agreement. “Me too.” And she’s not lying even a little bit. There’s something about it, about the off-white on white check, that feels like him—seemingly buttoned up and boring, but look a little closer and there’s that little piece irrepressible spirit peaking through. “I’ll make it up to you. Promise.”

For a moment Ben just looks down at her, strangely intent and wow maybe this was his favorite shirt too. Maybe it’s custom or a gift from some long lost love. Maybe he’s been spending too much time with Tom and it’s designer and super-expensive. Maybe . . .

Without looking away, Ben reaches out and flicks the bathroom light back off, leaving them standing there in candlelight.

“What are you doing?”

“Blaming the champagne.”

And then he tilts her chin and dips his head and even though it kind of feels inevitable, like a script that was written months ago, it’s still a surprise, still somehow entirely unexpected.

His mouth butterflies against hers like a question, like an experiment, and Leslie sighs in a way that might be a ‘yes.’

The thing is she’s not one-hundred percent sure exactly what’s happening right now. Oh she’s got the mechanics down, understands the grand outline of being kissed at a party with too much alcohol and too little food, in a house that’s not yours, in clothes that make you feel like someone else. It’s one of those moments where it’s half about setting and half about timing and only a little bit about what’s real.

Still there’s something about the gentleness of his fingers on her neck, about the way they fit, that makes her think she’s a little fuzzy on some of the more important details, feels like she missed a memo or a meeting.

Before she has the chance to ask for a more complete briefing, there’s the sound of foot-steps in the hall and they’re both pulling away like they’ve been burned.

By the time she gets home that night Leslie’s half-convinced herself she made it up

And even if she didn’t. There was an awful lot of champagne.

* * *

 **ii. Pawnee Memorial Hospital Christmas Fundraiser**

It’s the first event of what promises to be a long and exhausting and absolutely wonderful Holiday season. For the next few weeks Leslie has a list of obligations that makes her day planner feel a little bit like the White House social calendar. Sometimes she just stares at it, at all the invitations pinned up on her bulletin board, at the steadily growing collection of business cards in her rolodex, and it’s everything she can do not to pinch herself. ( _Tom keeps telling her to start using her Smartphone like a “member of the Twenty First Century” but she likes the paper. Likes the tangible proof that yes this is really happening._ )

Her mother calls an hour before the event to run down the guest list with interesting tidbits and important pieces of personal information. ( _“His son just made dean’s list at Notre Dame.” “Don’t bring up animals, Mike was attacked by a raccoon last week and can’t sit down.” “They’re getting a divorce. She’ll get everything, and she wants to be a force in her own right, mention Camp Athena”_ ). And even though she won’t use half the information she’s been given because it’s just not her style, Leslie can’t help the little swell of joy as she realizes this Machiavellian pep-talk is her mother’s version of an ‘I’m so proud of you’ speech.

Still she keeps the pencil scratched notes in her purse, touching them every so often like a talisman as she makes her way around the room, mentally ticking off the key names in her head. According to Marlene Griggs-Knope philanthropic dinners are networking gold-mines, the chance to connect with all the important players in local politics in a quasi-non-political setting.

And that’s exactly what she’s doing. She’s circulating and laughing and telling pre-prepared charming stories that remind people of her accomplishments just enough to make herself register, but not so much as to be obnoxious.

And she is absolutely not thinking about the fact Ben is standing over in the corner, in a tux, watching her do that.

Absolutely. Not. Thinking. About. It.

Damn. That’s not working.

Things have been awkward between them in the few weeks since Andy and April’s party, since he may or may not have kissed her in a candlelit bathroom, and then never said another word about it. And she maybe resents him a little bit for that. Because what kind of guy does that? What kind of guy kisses you after you ruined his favorite shirt and takes a job in your hometown and then proceeds to turn down casual dinner invitations, but still brings you waffles when you’re working late and doesn’t actually say anything?

But the thing that really gets her? The thing that makes her just want to strangle him?

Leslie hasn’t said anything either.

She promised herself, _promised_ herself this wasn’t going to happen again. After Mark. After so stupidly and uselessly holding on to a moment, a mistake like it was something precious. After realizing she’d built a memory into something it had never been, she told herself she’d never do it again. Vowed that she wouldn’t let something like this just fester, that she’d be mature and reasonable and forthright.

Whatever she and Ben are doing right now, it is absolutely none of those things.

And frankly it’s kind of pissing her off.

Which probably explains why even though she should be going over to make nice with the VP of Kernston’s, she is instead dragging Ben out the side-exit of the ballroom and into one of the hotel stairwells.

“What are you doing here?” she hisses as soon as the door closes behind her.

“Proving I still haven’t figured out how to say no to Chris.”

“All you do is say no to Chris.”

“I say no to other people for Chris. It’s a subtle but important distinction.”

“Arrggh!” She would choke him with his bowtie right now if she could.

“I’m sorry is there something about me representing the City Manager’s office at this event that’s pissing you off?”

She dodges the question. “I thought Chris loved these things. Connecting with everyone.”

“He does. He loves them so much he accepts invitations to more events than its possible for him to be at without breaking the laws of physics. Which is why he’s in Indy this evening representing Pawnee, and I am here representing Chris.” He spreads his hands in a little half-hearted ‘ta-da’ that somehow sums up the full extent of his lack of enthusiasm for the assignment. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to get back to work.”

He tries to reach for the door handle but Leslie doesn’t move from her spot in front of it because she’s finally got up the courage to do this. Because if she lets him go now, she knows she’s never going to be here again. Because she’s wearing an honest-to-god evening-gown and the clock’s striking midnight and if Cinderella had just stood her damn ground she probably could have saved herself a lot of heartache.

“Leslie-” Ben pleads.

“You kissed me.”

It sounds strange to say it out loud. Because she’s held on to it like a secret for weeks now, something special and hers and only half-remembered, and as long as it stayed like that, exactly like that, it could mean anything she wanted it to.

But now it hangs there between them, given substance and contours and shape, and for a moment she’s half-afraid he’s going to deny it. Plead drunkenness or ignorance or temporary loss of sanity. But he doesn’t. Instead he sucks in a sharp, shocked breath and nods.

“I did.”

“And it wasn’t just the champagne.”

“No. It wasn’t.” His voice is thick and raw, and when she meets his eyes the air suddenly feels charged, electric and for a surreal moment she swears he’s about to do it again.

She jerks her head away. “You can’t do that. You can’t just randomly kiss someone with no explanation. It’s rude.”

Ben drops his forehead against the door, and she can feel a tremor go through him, and then another and another. And suddenly it hits her.

He’s laughing.

Hysterically, silently laughing.

But it’s not with happiness or joy or anything she recognizes. This is manic, corrupt. Like his body’s hijacked it to take the place of a scream or a sob, used it to give physicality to some emotion too new to have an expression all its own.

Without thinking she reaches out and puts her hands on either side of his ribcage, like she’ll somehow hold him together, keep the pieces from shaking apart.

Ben moves to step away but she doesn’t let go because this isn’t done, and then his hands are on her bare shoulders to push her off and she’s fisting a hand in his shirt to hold on . . . and then he’s pulling her forward, his mouth slamming down onto hers.

And what the hell?

It’s the polar opposite of last time. In fact it’s pretty much the polar opposite of every kiss in her entire life. Needy and reckless and frantic. It’s storms coming and dams breaking. He’s got her pinned against the stairwell door, and his fingers are tangled in her hair, destroying her chignon, and there is absolutely no way she’ll be able to step a foot back out there without everyone knowing what just happened.

And then it’s over just as abruptly as it begins. She doesn’t know whether he breaks off or she pushes him away or some combination of the two, but suddenly he’s a foot away and she’s holding onto the door handle like a life line and they’re both staring at each other in disbelief.

This is hands down the most irresponsible thing she’s ever done.

And she’s so angry with him for putting her in this position she could spit.

And she’ll tell him that just as soon as she remembers how to breathe.

Ben finds his voice first. “I’m sorry. Leslie- I shouldn’t have- I’m so sorry.”

She gives him a second and then another. Because there’s an explanation here. Because he’s not this kind of guy. Because he hires children’s singers away from libraries and wears horrible plaid shirts and pretends to be excited about miniature horses. And guys like that just don’t do things like this.

But he’s not saying anything else and maybe they do.

“Okay,” she nods once, “Okay. You know what. I’m not doing this. I don’t know exactly what just happened. But I know it can’t happen again.”

“No it can’t,” Ben whispers, but he doesn’t sound happy about it.

That makes her turn back around. “No. See this is where I get confused. Because you kissed me. I remember that part. And if you didn’t like it, if it was weird or a mistake. I get that. In fact I get that a lot. Usually with a funny story I can use to cheer up my friends. But you! You keep showing up. You come to my office, and you bring me waffles, and you smile at me like . . . I don’t know. But I know that if you thought it was a mistake you shouldn’t be smiling at me like that. And now you’re here and in formal wear and watching me and kissing me in stairwells. And why? Why couldn’t we have just come together like normal people? What is your problem?”

“My problem?” He practically chokes on the words.

“Yes!”

“Why did you tell me to take the job when Chris offered it to me?!”

“Because I didn’t want you to leave!”

Ben just stares at her in disbelief. Like she’s psychotic, like she’s sucker-punched him, and it doesn’t make any sense until he whispers, “Leslie, I’m in your direct-reporting line.”

And suddenly with a horrid clarity she understands.

“You report to Ron,” Ben continues. “All directors of all non-essential city government departments-”

“Report to the deputy city manager,” she finishes for him feeling incredibly stupid. She knew this, of course she knew this. Even though they haven’t had a deputy manager for over a year, she’s had every organizational chart memorized since the day she first joined the parks department. But she never put it together, never stopped thinking of Ben as hers, and even now she has to make herself say the words one more time to really believe it, to force it to sink in. “All non-essential departments including, Parks and Recreation, report to you.”

He gives her a tight strained smile. “Even if it wasn’t against policy, Chris frowns on relationships within reporting lines. I approve your budget. I set your department’s performance benchmarks. I review your evaluations, your disciplinary actions. Hell, I sit on the promotions review board.” He drops his head back against the wall and stares up at the landing above them. “This crosses every line of professionalism I can think of.”

“Then why did you take it?”

“Because you told me to. Because I wanted to stay. Because I didn’t actually think-” he breaks off with a sigh.

“Didn’t think what?”

“I didn’t think it would feel like this.”

He looks at her as he says it, and it’s like something’s squeezing her heart, pressing down on it so hard it’s stopped beating and until it starts again, she can’t do anything other than stand here and ache.

“I never thought-” Ben starts, break offs, start again, “I thought six months. I figured I’d give it the six months Chris was assigned for, give us a chance to get to know each other better, and then maybe, if I got really lucky, you’d be interested and we’d figure something out. I’d, I don’t know, change offices, find something else, hope a regional position came open. I was buying time.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

“You told me to take the job the day after I kissed you.” He shoves his hands in his pockets and shakes his head. “Leslie, you know the Pawnee municipal code and city policy manuals by heart. What was I supposed to think? Honestly, I almost turned it down because of that.”

“But you didn’t.”

“It’s executive administrative experience. And-” he shrugs, “you asked me to stay.”

He says that last part so simply, like it’s actually a reason, like it explains everything, and she can’t decide whether she wants to hit him or kiss him. But then the realization that it’s inappropriate for her to do either washes over her and she thinks she might scream.

“You know the worst part?” Ben whispers.

Leslie shakes her head, because honestly, how could it actually get any worse?

“I really like the work.”

And that’s it, that’s the thing that finally makes her lose it. Because she understands, god how she understands. Her job is everything. It’s her whole world, her defining characteristic. Take that away and what do you have? She doesn’t really know, but she’s thinks she would be somehow less, something diminished.

Public service is the only thing she’s ever wanted in her whole life.

And the man standing across from her could take that all away.

They both know that. Know it would go badly for both of them, but worse for her. Because she’s theoretically subordinate, because she has a less transferable skill set, because she’s a woman. It’s unfair and it sucks and is such double standard she can’t stand it. But it is what it is, and if Ben’s taught her anything, it’s that ignoring the reality of a situation doesn’t solve the problem.

So he stands in the stairwell less than two feet away, white-knuckling his hands on the banister and watching her cry. And he might as well be in Indy for all the good that does her.

“Leslie- Leslie, just tell me what you want.”

 _Quit._ It’s there just on the tip of her tongue before she’s actually processed the thought, and then she does and the audacity of it startles her, makes her bite down hard on her bottom lip to keep it from coming tumbling out unbidden, squeeze her eyes shut.

He makes it sound so impossibly simple, when really they both know it’s simply impossible. She can’t ask him to quit, even if he wanted to. Not when he’s less than a few weeks in. That’s a career-destroying move. He certainly wouldn’t find another job in Pawnee. And things are finally happening for her, the kind of things she’s always dreamed of, that she’s worked her whole life for.

So there’s really only one solution, isn’t there?

And it might be the first time in her life she’s ever just accepted that something she truly wants is actually out of reach, and she’d only just gotten Ben to stop accepting it so easily and the whole thing feels like some horribly, unfunny practical joke.

Leslie shakes her head. “We can’t.”

“No. We can’t,” he agrees.

“If anyone found out . . .”

“Even if they didn’t,” Ben sighs and it hurts how perfectly she understands him. For all their superficial opposition at their core they’re the same, flip-sides of a coin. They believe in things like service and standards and never, never thinking you’re too special for the rules you uphold.

She says it for him. “The rules are there for a reason. I’ve always believed that.”

“Me too.”

“We can’t just ignore them,” and there’s the tiniest part of her that wants him to argue, to persuade her that they can, of course they can.

But all he does is tighten his grip on the hand rail and shake his head. “No. I mean it would taint everything, wouldn’t it? That’s not- That’s not how I want to start something with you.”

And someday, looking back, Leslie Knope will know this is the moment she fell inextricably, irrevocably in love with Ben Wyatt.

But right now it just hurts.

“Okay,” she breathes, because what else can she do? “Okay. So six months, right? We give it until Chris’s time is over and Paul comes back. I mean that was your plan all along. So we do that. We can do that. We can stay friendly and professional and pretend this didn’t happen . . .”

She trails off at the look in Ben’s eyes, the one that says he desperately wants to kiss her, and she knows they’re both lying to themselves.

“Ben?”

He blinks and runs a tired hand over his face and up into his hair, barking a sharp laugh. “Right. This didn’t happen.”

“So six months?”

“Six months.”

“It’s not that long.”

He gives her a half-hearted smile. “Over before we know it.”

But the thing they’re not saying, the thing still hanging between them, is in six months nothing will be magically solved, and in six months everything might change.

And she swears to god if she lets herself think about that a split second longer, she’s not going to leave this stairwell.

“So I um. I have to go find a mirror, and possibly a stylist,” she turns to go.

“You look beautiful.”

Her hand stalls out on door handle. “You can’t say things like that.”

“I know.”

“You absolutely cannot say things like that. Not when my hair’s a mess and my mascara’s running and I’m pretty sure my face is red. You’re not allowed to think I’m beautiful right now.”

“I know.” He repeats, and then she can feel him come up behind her, not close, not really, but near enough that she could reach back and touch him. She clenches her free hand tight. He sighs. “I just- I’ve never said it. I’ve thought it a hundred times when you’ve looked a hundred different ways. And you don’t even know.”

The last words are soft, an exhale of breath that she swears she feels more than hears. “Ben-”

He takes a step back, but he doesn’t stop. “You say it to Ann all the time, like its fact, like its gospel that of the two of you she’s the beautiful one. And it’s not. It’s not my gospel. I think you’re breathtaking. You walk into a room, and I can’t even tell you if Ann is there. And I’m sorry but six months is too long for you to go without knowing that.”

She swallows hard, but doesn’t turn around. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

And it feels hollow and meaningless and not at all an accurate representation of how his confession makes her feel, but what else is she supposed to say? Honestly how could she possibly respond without unraveling every resolution they’ve just made?

“Ben?”

“Yeah.”

“I’ve got at least ten more of these events. I can’t remember them all right now, but I need- I need you to figure out how to tell Chris no. Okay?”

A pause, a beat, an infinitesimal moment of possibility, then:

“Send me your schedule.”

Leslie slips out without looking back.

She doesn’t return to the fundraiser.

 

 

Later when she’s washed her face and tamed her hair, when she’s collected her coat and made her way out to the hotel parking lot, she looks up to find Ben walking down the next row over, coat in hand. They don’t say anything, just keep walking along their respective rows, separated by two car lengths and silence. But maybe he slows down and maybe she speeds up and maybe it’s a little bit like a moonlit stroll.

Then suddenly she’s at her car and the beep of her alarm sounds like a gunshot and they both just stop. Just stand there.

Absently her thumb skitters over the button for the passenger side lock. Pauses. Hesitates.

Ben doesn’t speak, doesn’t move, doesn’t do anything other than look at her, but somehow it feels like he knows.

Somewhere in the distance there’s the beep of a car horn.

Ben turns his head.

Leslie reaches for her car door.

 

 

She makes a point not to look in her rearview mirror as she drives away—half afraid he’ll still be standing there, half afraid he won’t be.

 

 

The Rotary Club’s Community Awards dinner is two days later.

Chris shows up.

-


	2. Chapter 2

**III. Governor’s Honorees Reception**

The Christmas season comes and goes, and true to his word the only event on her schedule Ben comes to is the Government Follies, but of course everyone’s there and it would be conspicuous if he wasn’t. Besides she’s sitting with the Parks Department, and he’s wearing a corduroy blazer and an awful shirt that could actually be called “Christmas Plaid” and it feels safe somehow, manageable.

The department adds a Holiday arts and crafts fair to this year’s Tree Lighting, and Leslie uses it to power through her entire gift list in one day—handmade jewelry for Ann, leather gloves for Tom, a cigar box for Ron. There’s a local photographer who set up a booth at the end, and he’s got a panoramic night shot of the Harvest Festival he’s cut and framed into three separate pieces—a dizzying triptych of color and joy and infinite possibility—and all she can think of is the blank wall behind Ben’s desk and how this was made to go there and how she can’t give it to him.

She buys it anyways.

Tucks it in an already too-full closet and tells herself: Next year.

-

She changes his primary number on her speed dial from cell to work, adds his last name to the simple ‘Ben’ in her phonebook, and removes the picture from his profile. The first time “Ben Wyatt – Pawnee City Government” pops up on her screen he feels so far-away she wants to cry.

-

Over the next few months they settle into a kind of holding pattern, a stasis comprised of a dozen self-imposed boundaries, a hundred unwritten rules.

They can eat lunch together in the court-yard but never more than twice a week and never planned.

He can come out to the Snakehole Lounge, but he arrives with Tom and she leaves with Ann and they count their drinks like misers.

She’s doesn’t ask where his new apartment is. He’s doesn’t tell her.

He comes out at ten p.m. one night in March to find her standing in the parking lot staring at two flat tires ( _Pikitis! Damn Spring Break._ ), and he calls Triple-A, and waits with her on the steps of City Hall for an hour and never once suggests that he give her a ride.

-

He still brings her waffles when she’s working late.

She still goes out of her way to invite him to all the official Parks Department events.

Tiny slips, just tiny slips.

But they already teeter so close to the edge.

* * *

It’s early May when they almost lose their balance.

They’re putting together the Master Plan for the coming fiscal year, and Ben has to sit down with her to finalize all the numbers for the new Observatory before they break ground. It’s a complicated long-term investment and their workdays spill into evenings, spill into nights. They fall into their old rhythm like the Harvest Festival was yesterday—bicker and laugh and debate in a way that’s familiar and comfortable and all too easy.

And maybe their carefully drawn lines get smudged.

It’s past midnight, and they’re in probably the tenth round of what they both know will be a twelve round fight on the revenue level from the Observatory the Parks Department can reasonably expect to see over time. He’s obviously low-balling her, and okay maybe she’s high-balling him, but the point is his numbers are wrong.

And she is right in the middle of telling him that, and he’s in the middle of reminding her that initial interest almost always has a predictable rate of decay, and it is very possible she takes a dry-easer to his projected calculations just on general principle. ( _Because you can’t calculate the wonder of the stars, Ben_ ).

Apparently this is not a persuasive argument ( _though she thought it had poetry_ ), because he’s up on his feet and trying to take the eraser away, and she’s trying to get to the column on maintenance costs, and he grabs and she dodges and takes off out of the conference room and he follows and it’s a magnificent game of keep away.

Right up until the moment he catches her.

Leslie miscalculates and gets herself cornered behind Ron’s desk, tries for a feint, but Ben still has a little of his shortstop quickness and he moves with her, shooting a hand out to block her escape and the next thing she knows he’s got her trapped against the wall hemmed in by his arms on either side.

“Hand it over.”

Really the look on his face is entirely too smug, and there’s only one option dignity will afford her. She raises the eraser above her head. “Come and take it.”

For a second she knows Ben intends to do just that. He takes a deliberate step forward and reaches up to grab at the eraser, and she tenses her arms to hold on because honor is at stake here, and then . . .

Nothing.

The flat of Ben’s hand lands against the wall with a crack that makes her jump.

Leslie lowers her arms and steps away. He lets her go.

She puts the eraser down on the windowsill like an apology. “It’s late. We should, um, we should call it a night.”

For a second his whole body seems to sag, and he looks so weary that she just wants to wrap her arms around him, hold him up. Then Ben sighs, straightens and everything snaps back into place.

“Yeah.” He rubs tiredly at the side of his face, “Yeah. We can finish this up tomorrow. I’ll get you some notes in the morning.”

She stays in Ron’s office while he gathers up his things and leaves without saying goodbye.

The next day Ben emails her the redlined section for the observatory, and she drops off her handwritten notes with his assistant.

It takes them a week to really start talking again.

And she thinks the end of June can’t come soon enough.

 

* * *

As is the way of things six months somehow slide into seven and then eight when nobody’s looking. And suddenly it’s late August, and Chris is still here.

It’s apparent that Paul won’t be coming back to work. Mid-June his recovery took a turn for the worst and the City sent flowers and set up a search committee and asked Chris to stay on in the interim while they looked for a permanent replacement.

Chris said fantastic.

Ben didn’t say much of anything.

And Leslie tells herself to be grateful because none of the other city departments have anything open that wouldn’t put him to sleep in three hours, and the State is systematically downsizing all its regional offices, and he actually goes for an interview at Sweetums even though they both know he’d hate it. And at least this way he’s still here, still buying time.

Besides, he’s so good at the job he has.

The search committee drags its collective feet, because of course what everyone knows but isn’t saying is they want Chris to be the replacement. And Chris speaks with enthusiasm about the town and the work and makes encouraging statements and somehow avoids committing to anything.

“Does he want more money?” she asks Ben one morning, when they’re doing this thing they do now, where they come in before everyone and walk the halls coffee in hand and only ever talk about work and pretend it’s enough.

Ben shrugs. “I don’t think so. I mean everyone wants more money, but that’s not really the sticking point.”

“So what is?”

“He wants carte blanche to reorganize.”

Leslie shakes her head, “That’s-”

“Not gonna happen. I know. I keep telling him that. It’s only been a year since we came, and we took some pretty severe steps then. The town needs a chance to settle. Chris is too used to Indy where everything moves as fast as he does. Pawnee,” he stops and looks up at the mural of the magician being burned at the stake and smiles, “well, you guys kind of have your own speed, don’t you?”

Leslie bites her lip and doesn’t say anything, but she crosses the fingers of her opposite hand and prays that the search committee won’t ever think to turn their heads, to shift their gaze just one chair over and see Ben sitting there.

She hates herself for doing it, but it doesn’t stop her.

-

It turns out to be the wrong wish.

* * *

The Governor’s Office holds a reception in Indianapolis to honor outstanding public works projects over the past year, and Pawnee is getting a surprising amount of attention from a man that has not once come to see them on a campaign swing. But a ‘pulled themselves up by their bootstraps’ story is a ‘pulled themselves up by their bootstraps’ story even if most the city’s residents would have to have their boots custom-made to fit around their extra-large calves.

The reception takes place on the garden terrace of the Oldfields-Lilly House, taking advantage of the pleasant summer breeze and the way the sun lingers late into the evening ( _one of the few advantages to being on the back-end of the Eastern Time Zone. Ridiculously late winter sunrises being the primary negative_ ). Ann helps her pick out a pearl gray cocktail dress that avoids the expected black but still feels professional and pair of wedge heeled flats that will let her keep her balance on the grass, and she spends the entire week leading up to it making Tom help her practice her handshake so it will be perfect if she gets to meet the Governor.

Ron doesn’t go this time. ( _“Leslie, Mulligan’s is closed. That city is dead to me”_ ) But the Mayor’s office and the City Manager’s team and lots of other people, who actually had very little to do with the Harvest Festival at all, do.

Well, lots of other people and Ben.

And they already feel so fragile, so precarious, that she almost gives her spot to Tom. Almost asks Ben not to go.

But the Harvest Festival was theirs, and they both deserve this.

By the end of the evening, she’s pretty much forgotten her earlier concerns entirely. Mayor Gunderson’s chief of staff attaches herself to Leslie’s side from the moment she walks in, looking her over with a critical eye that makes Leslie want to check if she got chocolate on her cocktail dress on the way over.

But apparently she passes muster once she follows the directive to ‘lose the scarf’, because the next few hours are a whirl of introductions and carefully arranged photographs with people she’s only ever seen in the paper, and Mayor Gunderson shakes her hand ( _Three times! There are pictures!_ ), and she only catches the barest glimpse of Ben over at the edge of the terrace deep in conversation with a short balding man she doesn’t recognize.

“So Leslie,” Mayor Gunderson claps her on the shoulder. ( _Oh god, the mayor knows her name. Her real name. Not the Chelsea he’s been calling her for the past two hours. Oh this might just be the best day of her entire life_ ). “You gonna help us out with our problem, Leslie?”

“Absolutely!”

“Wonderful. I look forward to working with you, Chelsea.”

Wait.

But he’s already moved away to join another conversation. She turns back to stare up at Evelyn Roushland. “I’m sorry, what just happened?”

“Against the Mayor’s explicit wishes, Councilman Dexhart has announced that he intends to seek reelection. You’ve just agreed to challenge his seat. Congratulations,” she adds with about as much enthusiasm as she might have said ‘I hit your dog’ or ‘You have a traumatic brain injury.’ “Here.” She hands Leslie a business card. “When you get to Pawnee we’ll sit down and go over strategy. Our biggest asset, of course, will be image. Specifically yours. You’ve got this very wholesome but competent thing going that is, well frankly everything Dexhart isn’t. So we’ll need to go over your history and make sure there aren’t any potential landmines. Anyway call me on Monday and we can get started.”

And then she’s gone and Leslie’s left holding a two by three-and-half-inch, embossed, ivory card-stock, ticket to her dreams.

She can’t believe this is really happening.

The reception’s winding down and people are peeling off, breaking away in smaller groups to go back to their hotels, to continue conversations in more private settings, to simply enjoy a night out on the town. And it’s probably exactly the time when she should be avoiding Ben, but she doesn’t think about that, doesn’t think about anything other than telling him, because with perhaps the exception of Ann there’s no one else she wants to share this with more.

He’s standing over with Chris and the balding gentleman she’d seen earlier. They’re shaking hands obviously saying a few last goodbyes, and she comes up just in time to hear the tail end of the conversation.

“. . . talk some sense into this one for me, will you, Chris? I’m sure Pawnee’s lovely, but you can’t keep him to yourself forever and we both know what an opportunity it would be.”

“Absolutely. Absolutely. It’s a fantastic opportunity. I literally cannot tell you how excited I am for him.”

Neither one of them seems to notice that Ben doesn’t seem particularly excited at all, and a slow crawl of foreboding starts to make its way up Leslie’s spine.

“I’m sorry? What opportunity?”

“Leslie Knope!” Chris turns and touches her arm, bringing her into the fold like she was exactly the person he’d been looking for. “Craig, this is Leslie Knope. Leslie is the brilliant mind behind the Harvest Festival and the new Observatory we’re building with that revenue. She is absolutely the embodiment of all the things that make Pawnee literally the best place to live. Leslie this is Craig Richards, the best State Budget Director in the nation.”

Craig holds out a hand and gives her warm smile. Somehow she forces herself to return the gesture. He seems like a very nice man. Leslie thinks she’s going to hate him.

“I was just telling Chris here that he needs to convince your Deputy City Manager to come back to work for me again. Really Ben heading a Regional Office would put you in the perfect position to take over for Julianne when she retires in a year or two.”

Or maybe not.

“A regional office! That’s fantastic. I mean we’d all hate to lose him in Pawnee. But if he’ll just be over in Eagleton-”

Craig laughs, “No, I want to give him South Bend. It’s the only regional office we’re keeping open, but he’ll handle the entire Northwest area from the Chicago suburbs on down which means when the Commissioner for Local Government Finance retires in a few years time, he’ll be the ideal man for the job. Talk him into it for me would you?”

Leslie just nods dumbly without saying anything. She feels like someone's pulled the floor out from under her, like she’s in free fall and the vertigo is making her nauseous.

Somewhere in the distance, people are speaking, saying goodbyes, jingling car-keys. Somewhere far away life is going on. But she’s still falling, and she can’t seem to stop.

There’s a feather-light touch at her back, tethering her, pulling her back to reality. “Hey.” Ben whispers, “You okay?”

She shakes her head.

“Okay. Okay, just hold on.”

He jogs over to Chris who Leslie has just now realized is halfway down the outside stairs that lead to the parking lot, and she doesn’t know what is going on, but after a few seconds he’s back. “I told Chris you weren’t feeling well, so I was going to drive you back to your hotel. If he ever asks tell him you had a bad cream puff or something.”

“Isn’t it usually the shrimp?”

“Chris eats those.”

“Oh.”

And honestly she really does feel like she might have eaten something that didn’t agree with her, if it wasn’t for the fact that she hasn’t had the chance to eat anything tonight.

Ben leads her over to one of the benches by the house and sits down beside her, looking out at the caters packing up the warming trays, at the last summer blooms on the hedges, at the stars. At anything other than her. “I’m sorry. That wasn’t the way I wanted you to find out about Craig’s offer.”

“How um, how long have you known about it?”

He leans forward to rest his elbows on his knees, stares down at his hands. “He called me yesterday. I’ve spent the last twenty-four hours trying to just, I don’t know, process it.”

“Is it really as good an opportunity as Craig says it is?”

And she doesn’t know what she expects, what she’s hoping for. Maybe that he'll suddenly realize that it’s actually a terrible offer and Craig is just trying to trap him in some dead-end job. But Ben just nods.

“It is. It’s actually-” he gives a shaky laugh, and runs a hand over his face, “A year ago I would have accepted it before Craig got the words out. It’s exactly what he says. Good experience, a fantastic stepping stone. The fact that he’s talking about two years down the road to Julianne’s retirement is just-”

He breaks off, as if suddenly conscious of what he’s saying, how he’s saying it. But it doesn’t matter, Leslie’s already seen everything she needs to. He _wants_ this. It’s like someone’s lit him up from the inside. Validated his entire career in one masterstroke.

“You’d take it. If it wasn’t for me, you’d have said yes already.”

He shakes his head in a way that isn't a yes, but isn't a no either, and turns to look at her, his eyes pleading with her to understand. “Leslie, I didn’t ask for this. You have to know I never went looking for it.”

And it’s not an answer. Except for the part where it is.

Without thinking she reaches over and lays a hand on his back, drops her head to the curve of his neck. And she doesn’t care that they’re outside, doesn’t care about the caterers or whether someone comes back from the parking lot looking for their purse or their keys or whatever. Doesn’t care about anything but this man and all the months she’s wasted not being with him.

Ben cups a hand to her cheek, presses his face into her hair, and groans, “Leslie- Please-”

She’s not even sure he knows what he’s asking for, but she nods all the same.

Taking her hand in his, he gets up from the bench and starts to lead her off the terrace. But instead of taking the steps to the parking lot like she expects, he turns the other way, leading her down an opposite set she hadn’t paid much attention to earlier.

“What are-”

But he holds a finger up to his lips, like it’s all some excellent secret, some sublime trick she’ll just ruin with words. And maybe it is, maybe they can only do this, whatever it is they’re doing, if they don’t talk about it, if remains unspoken, if-

“Oh.”

It’s not so much said as breathed. A soft exhalation of wonderment.

The perfect manicured beauty of the house gardens has given way to a ravine. The lights from the terrace playing through the trees to dapple the grass like otherworldly starlight. And though she can tell this must receive every bit of care and attention as the others, with its cascading stream and tree lined paths it feels somehow wilder, more spirited. It feels like stepping through the looking glass or taking the second star to the right and heading straight on ‘til morning.

Like she’s run away to someplace far away and magical where anything’s possible if only you just wish it so.

She turns to find Ben watching her, the affection on his face almost tangible in a way she hasn’t seen, couldn’t let herself see, for so long.

“I’ve wanted to bring you here forever. I think it might just be my favorite place in the city, since we have no baseball team to speak of.” He gives her a shy smile, “Do you like it?”

There’s really only one answer to that.

She kisses him.

It’s exuberant and joyful and chaste. Nothing more than a brief press of lips, but it’s enough. Enough to demolish every boundary, obliterate every reservation.

Enough that she’s barely pulled away before he’s bringing her back. And she goes willingly. So, _so_ willingly.

His mouth moves against hers with an almost determined laziness. Like he’s trying to make up for every time he hasn’t kissed her before, like he’s trying to stretch the minutes into days, years, forever.

Leslie responds like she believes he can.

When they finally separate, it’s just to stand there, foreheads touching, breath mingling, and she realizes she’s still holding his hand, has been this entire time, as if she’s afraid what will happen when she lets go.

“Leslie-”

She kisses him before he can continue. “Don’t- Just- just show me the rest, please?”

When Leslie was seven years old, she ran away from home and went to live under the jungle gym in Ramsett Park. Her father brought her waffles and a blanket and sat on the park bench that was partially obscured by a tree so she could pretend he wasn’t there. She stayed up late and watched the stars and began a new sovereign nation free from the petty tyrannies inflicted by parents—like clean teeth and neat rooms and having to pay stupid, awful, library fines out of her own allowance when her only crime was wanting to keep the books a little longer.

And even though a storm came and she got soaked to the bone and caught the flu, and her mother yelled at her father for letting her be so foolish, what Leslie still remembers is those four hours when everything in the world was hers for the taking.

She feels like she's seven years old all over again, determined to run away forever yet knowing at the same time that nobody actually lives in a jungle gym.

Ben leads her silently through the garden, pausing occasionally to kiss her under the shelter of a tree, the middle of a footbridge, the edge of the stream. Kisses her just because he can, with a delicious, casual entitlement that makes her feel like they've been doing this forever.

She takes off her shoes and wades ankle deep into one of the rock-rimmed pools. Ruins her dress and his suit when she splashes him repeatedly until he finally comes and joins her.

“You're impossible,” he laughs.

She grins. “But you love it.”

“I do.” Then, suddenly serious, he reaches out and tilts her head up to meet his gaze. “I really, really do.”

Her fingertips fly up to his lips of their own accord, and she doesn’t know whether she’s trying to hold on to the words or push them back in. Maybe a little bit of both.

It feels like she's breaking and being remade and breaking all over again. Feels unbelievably wonderful and unimaginably cruel all at the time. Because she can hear the part he's not saying, and she knows why he's holding back. Because it's too soon and too late, and they're beginning as they're ending, and she's clinging on with both hands only to feel it all slipping between her fingers.

“You can't say things like that.”

Ben just takes her hand in his and kisses her palm, completely unapologetic. “I know.”

“I keep telling you, and you keep doing it anyway.”

“I do.”

She can feel him watching her, waiting. Curious where's she's going and trying not to rush the journey. And she knows he didn't say it because of anything he needed to hear, any demands he's trying to make. He simply wanted her to know. And in the end that's what makes her decision easy.

She drops her hand to his heart. “You're impossible.”

He picks up the cue like it's an old routine and smiles.

“But you love it.”

“I do. I really, really do.”

* * *

They get chased off by a guard just before midnight, and Ben tries to convince him that they simply lost track of time and didn't realize everyone had left, but she can't stop laughing and they're both still barefoot, and the guard asks if Ben's okay to drive about five times before he lets them go, so she's pretty sure he thinks they're both drunk.

And maybe in a way they are.

She'd been afraid the walk to the car would feel like the end, like without the setting to hold the world at bay everything would come crashing back too quickly. And maybe Ben had the same thought, because he steals her keys from her hand and takes off at a half-speed jog ( _still barefoot_ ), and of course she can't let the challenge go unanswered, and it's a magnificent game of keep away.

Up to and including the point where she catches him.

* * *

She lets him drive because he knows the city better, because she doesn't really want to think about where they're going or the possibilities when they get there. Because she never does, actually, get her keys back.

Midway through the ride, her stomach growls so loudly Ben almost jumps.

“When was the last time you ate?”

Leslie bites her lip and tries to think. Let’s see, she had that Nutri-Yum for lunch, and then that chocolate bar in the car, that would have been . . .

This is apparently all the answer he needs, because the next thing she knows he's sliding into far left lane and taking a turn at the next light.

When they reach their new destination, Leslie looks up at the sign for wood-fired pizzas and calzones with unconcealed skepticism. “You're never going to let this go, are you?”

He gives her a mock glare. “Just trust me.”

“Ben Wyatt, don't you dare get me a calzone. They're pointless and impossible to eat and nobody likes-”

He shuts the driver’s side door on her tirade and heads inside, turning back at the last minute to give her a little wave and a smile that makes her think of 'Tommy Fresh' and Dennis Feinstein and . . . dammit she's getting a calzone.

* * *

He makes her wait until they get back to the hotel, and they spread the boxes out on the floor of her room like college kids, and she’s so hungry by this time she doesn’t think she’d care if he’d gotten her a salad ( _well, no, yes she would, but the point is she’s really hungry_ ). So the fact she thinks this might just be one of the better non-breakfast-food things she’s ever eaten is clearly a sign of starvation induced delirium and nothing more.

Still when Ben reaches over to wipe a smear of pizza sauce from the corner of her mouth with his thumb, it’s with a smile that says he thinks he’s won something.

Leslie feels more than a little vindicated when he spills marinara on his tie.

“Stop laughing,” he commands, trying to sound stern and failing miserably, “I liked this tie. It’s not- It’s not funny-”

Except it kind of is. And he barely gets the words out before he loses it. Utterly loses it, and then they’re both doubled-over, laughing far harder and longer than the situation merits.

But of course it doesn’t really have anything to do with the calzones at all. It’s this and them and everything in between. It’s the joyous relief of finally saying yes after eight months of no, and the frantic hysteria of feeling the clock running down. It’s thinking everything is exactly the way it’s supposed to be and knowing it’s all an illusion.

It’s wanting to have this same exact argument for years to come and not being able to figure out how.

And she’s not doing this, she is absolutely not letting herself cry, because it’s only one-thirty in the morning, and she’s not going to waste whatever hours she has left. Because Leslie’s never been one to stop fighting just because she knows she’s going to lose.

She reaches out and twists the end of the tie around her hand, tugging him forward as if for a kiss only to pull back at the last second and smile against his mouth. “See. They’re pointless _and_ hard to eat.”

“I don’t know.” Ben muses, seeming to give the point the appropriate level of consideration. Suddenly he catches her round the waist and drags her back towards him, silencing her shrieks of protest with a kiss, and then another and another until she’s breathless and pliant and pretty much ready agree to anything, and because he’s obviously a dirty, rotten cheater that’s the moment he breaks off and looks over at the remnants of crust left in her box. “You seemed to enjoy yours.”

Okay she was ready to agree to anything but you know _that_. Shakes her head in the emphatic negative. “Nope.”

“Oh, really?”

And he’s giving her a look that says he doesn’t believe a word she’s saying, and he obviously won’t take her seriously as long she’s half-draped over him and she’s not about to let him think that he can win such an important debate by doing wha- _ohhh_ \- whatever it is he’s doing with his hand right now. So she obviously she needs to move to a position of greater authority.

She kneels up and throws a leg over both of his, so that she’s straddling his lap and he has to look up at her, and yes this feels much more powerful. “Calzones are dumb.”

Ben just smiles up at her. “So you didn’t like it at all?”

And he doesn’t seem to be as intimidated as she feels he should be, and that might have something to do with the way his thumbs are skimming ever so slowly up the insides of her thighs, and oh, maybe this wasn’t the brilliant strategic move she thought it was.

She bites down on her bottom lip to keep herself from saying something stupid like “I loved it” or “I love you” or “don’t go”. Starts to squirm out of reach so he can’t keep cheating, but Ben’s hands tighten around her thighs to keep her there, and the end result is that all she really accomplishes is grinding against him in a way that makes his eyes go glazed and half-lidded, and _hmmm_ , okay so, she’s beginning to see the advantages here.

Experimenting with this newly discovered power, she shifts forward and then back, smiling in triumph when Ben just barely bites back a moan, his hands flexing against her upper thighs like he’s trying to stop himself. ( _Definite advantages_ ). Puts a hand on his chest to steady herself as she leans forward to brush her lips against his ear.

“It was awful, like a backwards pizza. A pointless backwards pizza.”

Ben buries his face in her neck and laughs; a soft, silent chuckle that sends little puffs of breath along her skin and makes her whole body vibrate in response. And it’s so not fair that he’s able to do that to her when he’s not even trying.

And then his mouth is skimming along the curve of her shoulder, the line of her throat, and he’s decidedly trying now.

“That must have been terrible for you.”

“Hmm?” She feels like they might have been talking about something important, like she should be focusing on his words and not letting herself get distracted by the hand that’s come up to ghost along the underside of her breast.

“Having to eat that whole awful backwards pizza by yourself when you didn’t like a single bite. Must have been torture.” He says it in that stupid, teasing way he does sometimes where he pretends he’s agreeing with her when he’s so not, and she should be arguing but-

No, yes, she should be arguing. This is important.

She sits back, her hand still on his chest, holding him at arm’s reach and she can feel his heartbeat under palm, beating a too-fast cadence that belies his half-hearted attempt to appear relaxed. Puts on her serious face and looks him in the eye. “It was. Absolute torture. You should be ashamed.”

Ben just drops his head back against the edge of the bed and reaches out to trail a lazy fingertip along the neckline of her dress. Looks up at her, shirt rumpled, tie askew. His eyes soft and adoring and completely unrepentant. “Should I?”

Ugh, this is getting her nowhere, and she can feel everything start to go hazy and soft-focus as he reaches the swell of her breast and dips that finger ever-so-slightly beneath the fabric to brush the edge of her bra. She changes tactics, curls her hand up around the loose knot of his tie.

“The calzone messed up your tie.” She starts to undo it. “You really liked this tie.”

“I did.”

Slides it out from under his collar. Drapes it around her neck. “I liked this tie.”

He twists his hand in the ends, gives them a little tug, to bring her closer, whispering as he kisses her. “You’re lying.”

Yeah she kind of is because really it’s pretty awful. But at the same time she hates the idea of him wearing something else, something more stylish or conservative or whatever, and she has the insane impulse to make him promise that he’ll keep wearing them. That when he gets elected State Treasurer or Inspector General or anything else he sets his sights on, he’ll do it wearing terrible, skinny ties and horrible plaid shirts. That he won’t let some consultant talk him into pinstripes or designer suits. That she’ll always be able to hold onto this image of him right here, right now and never have to wonder if it’s still true.

But she doesn’t say any of that.

Instead she just kisses him back harder, deeper. Letting one kiss spiral into another and then another until she’s forgotten about skinny ties and stupid calzones and arguing about nothing. About offices in South Bend and city council elections and professional ethics. About everything other than the feel of him, all of him—the taste of his skin, the contours of his ribcage, the sound of him coming apart above her.

The way they fit together in the after.

And for one moment she actually lets herself believe that she can stay here, that she can have this, that the rest of it doesn’t matter. That she’ll move to South Bend or he’ll stay in Pawnee or they’ll simply run away and raise llamas or bake pies or start a rock band or whatever and that part’s not even important because they’ll just be together. They’ll be happy.

But, of course, it doesn't work that way, even in storybooks.

Alice leaves Wonderland.

And Wendy grows up.

And Leslie's always known, even when she was seven:

Nobody actually lives in a jungle gym.

* * *

Sleep comes like a sneak thief, creeping up on her, stealing time, and suddenly it’s morning and Leslie can feel dawn pressing against her eyelids, and it strikes her that that’s wrong somehow, because she always wakes before sunrise and even so it’s from the wrong angle, and she instinctively burrows down against it only to find that the sheets are too crisp and the bed’s too big and too empty-

And suddenly everything’s there, slamming into her consciousness with vivid excruciating detail, making her heart clench and her eyes sting with something that feels like first-flight and crash-landing all at once.

“Hey.” Ben’s voice calls her back, pulling her out of her downward spiral, and she slits her eyes open to find him sitting at the small side table, looking over at her with a shy, embarrassed smile.

He’s already partly dressed in an undershirt and rumpled suit pants. The sight makes her feel oddly vulnerable, and she pulls the sheet a little tighter against her. “Hey.”

The tiny flicker of disappointment on his face tells her the gesture didn’t go unnoticed. Ben looks down at his hands, which she realizes now are holding his phone, turning it over and over in a strangely contemplative gesture.

And she doesn’t know what she expected, how she hoped this would all go, but she knows this is all wrong. Absently, she reaches out, seeking something to cover up with, like that will somehow help make everything manageable. Her hand lands on his discarded shirt and she pulls it on without thinking, only realizing what she’s done when she hears Ben’s sharp inhalation.

Leslie fumbles to undo the buttons, fingers suddenly clumsy. “Sorry. I don’t know- I mean, I have clothes in my bag. I just, um-”

“No, it’s fine. Really it’s- It’s okay. More than okay, in fact.” At that she stops and looks up to find him looking at her with a funny mixture of desire and wry self-deprecation that makes her insides flip-flop.

“You sure?”

“I’m sure.” But he still turns back to glance down at the phone in his hand, then he takes a deep breath and sets it carefully down on the table. Looks back over at her. “I, um, I made coffee. I don’t know whether you know this about me, but when it comes to brewing coffee in hotel rooms, I’m kind of an expert.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” he murmurs, then stands, fingers grazing the screen of his phone one last time, like a touchstone. “So. You want some?”

She doesn’t actually. She’s never been that big a fan of basic coffee, prefers her caffeine to come with flavored syrup and whip-cream and sprinkles. But she nods yes all the same, feeling grateful for the opportunity to just give them a little space, let them start fresh.

Ben gets up and goes into the bathroom, ( _and why do hotels always put the coffee makers in their bathrooms, anyways?_ ).

Leslie sits up, running a hand through her hair. She can hear Ben moving around in the bathroom. He’s taking longer than necessary to get the coffee, and she knows he’s giving her a chance to compose herself. Which means she should probably, you know, compose herself.

Easier said than done.

By the time Ben comes back out she’s dug underwear out of her bag and pulled on the pair of yoga-pants she usually sleeps in when she travels, and she doesn’t really feel any more composed or less vulnerable, but maybe it’s a start.

Ben sets the coffee down in front of her on the table, along with a stack of sugar and creamer packets almost an inch thick. “Not quite sprinkles, but it’s everything I could find.”

The corners of her mouth quirk up. “See I would have been impressed if there were sprinkles.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

That makes her drop her gaze, and she focuses on adding the sugar to her coffee on packet at a time. “I never asked, are you and Chris supposed to go back to Pawnee today?”

“No. He has a charity run this morning, and I have some errands, so we agreed to stay the weekend.”

She glances back over her shoulder at the clock beside the bed. It’s almost eight. “Were you supposed to drive him?”

“Friends are picking him up. There is a rumor going around that I may have thrown a shoe at him one time when he knocked on my hotel room door before six on a Saturday morning to invite me for a run.”

“You’re a morning person.”

“I am.”

He leaves it at that, and Leslie smiles against the rim of her coffee cup.

“No one’s looking for me, Leslie. And if they are, they’ll call my cell, not my room.”

That makes her flush. Was she really so transparent?

“I’m sorry. I just-” she shakes her head, “I mean it doesn’t really matter anymore, does it? Not since you’re-”

She breaks off, still unable to actually make herself say the words. But it doesn’t matter. It’s back with them now all the same, looming and insistent. Hangs between them like a Damoclean sword.

Ben sets the flats of his hands on the table, and stares down at that phone that seems to be taking so much of his attention. And for a moment it’s as if he’s paused there, suspended. Then as though coming to a decision, he blows out a long exhale of breath, taps the screen to life, and slides the phone across the table to her.

“That’s kind of what I wanted to talk to you about.”

Oh god _._

She picks it up. Fingers trembling, stomach plummeting, simultaneously terrified of what might be there and what might not.

It’s everything she feared.

The draft email to Craig Richards is succinct but thoughtful—thanking him for his mentorship over the years, expressing gratitude for the offer, flattery at being considered, but ultimately turning it down for “compelling personal reasons” that require him to remain in Southern Indiana at the very least.

“Say the word and I’ll hit send.”

Leslie bites down hard on her bottom lip, sets the phone face down on the table and slowly shakes her head. “I can’t ask-”

He reaches across the table and puts a hand over hers, stalling the words in her throat. “You can.”

“Ben-”

“No, listen. Just listen first. I’ve spent these last months going out of mind, making do with scraps, and it’s been- well, it’s kind of been hell.”

“I know.”

“But at the same time it’s kind of been wonderful, too. Getting to know you, to watch you and not constantly be wondering ‘if’. Just knowing how you felt, that you felt something, that we were going through this together, well it made the rest of it worth it. And I just, I sat here this morning and I watched you and I thought, what am I doing? Why am I even thinking about walking away from this after more than ten months of waiting for it?”

“Eight months. It’s been eight months.” She feels like she has every second of it etched on her skin.

“It’s been more than ten for me.”

“Oh.” She turns her head away, not knowing quite what to do with that.

“Leslie- Just say the word.”

She turns back to face him, forces herself to meet his eyes. For the first time she feels like she’s seeing the Ben Wyatt who got elected at eighteen and bankrupted a town—sincere and passionate and utterly reckless. Ready to throw himself off a cliff on the strength of his belief alone, without any regard for the rocks below.

And she can see why he won.

Because like this, he is persuasive. With that passion glittering in his eyes, that sincerity giving credence to his words and even that recklessness, lacing his face with a vibrant energy, he is so very, _very_ persuasive. And she has to force herself to remember all the reasons why jumping isn’t a fantastic idea.

“You couldn’t keep your job in Pawnee. I can’t-”

“I know. I can’t either.”

“So what would you do?”

He shrugs. “I don’t know. I’ll- I’ll become a financial planner. I’ll get my CPA license. Maybe the audit position at Sweetums will pan out. I’m a very good financials guy. I can find something.”

And it’s not that she doesn’t believe him. Because she does. He would find something. She knows he would. But it would be just that: ‘something.’

“Ben this job Craig’s offering you. It’s your dream or at least a clear path to it. And don’t tell me it’s not, because I saw it in your face last night. You can’t just throw it away like that after you’ve worked so hard. People don’t do that.”

He shakes his head. “People do that all the time. Make adjustments, compromises, sacrifices, for someone else, because of someone else. You change jobs to spend more time with your family. Move back home to tend to ailing parents. Pass up a promotion because it will require you to travel. People do this, Leslie.”

“But not like this, not after one night.”

She knows it’s wrong the moment she says it, wants to claw it back. Rip it out of the air. But she can’t and the words hit Ben like a slap, make his whole body go rigid.

“Is that all you think-?”

Flipping her hand over under his, she grabs hold of his fingers to stop him from pulling away. “No! No, of course not. It’s just,” she sighs, “I don’t even have a name for what we are. For this thing we’ve been doing for the past eight months.”

That makes him relent a little, and for a moment he just stares down at the table. Then, softly, “I do.”

She waits.

Ben continues, “It’s something else I’ve been thinking about this morning. What we’ve been doing, everything we’ve been telling ourselves. We constructed all these rules so we’d remain professional, so that we wouldn’t cross any lines. But that never changed the fact that I wanted to say yes to things just to see you smile or I went out of my way to avoid a decision that I knew would hurt you. I don’t think I’ve been professional about anything regarding you since the day I asked you if you wanted a beer. I cross lines every time I look at you in a meeting. So this thing we’ve been doing for eight months?”

He turns their hands over on the table, and lays his other hand over top. “It’s a relationship. Call it a relationship.”

“But that’s just the thing. It’s not.” She covers their clasped hands with her free one, holding him there, keeping him with her, because he needs to hear this. “We’re doing everything backwards. And we’re missing all the pieces that make up a foundation. Ben, I’ve never been to your apartment. I don’t know if you’re a neat freak or a pack-rat. We’ve never talked about whether you believe in marriage or if you want kids. I don’t even really know what side of the bed you prefer.”

“And you don’t want the chance to find out?”

“Of course I do. But I can’t-”

“Can’t what?”

“I can’t be the reason you stay!”

And even though it comes out as a rasp, the words still land between them with a thud that feels final and definite, like doors closing or gavels pounding. Ben pulls his hands away and this time she lets him.

“I’m sorry. I really am, but you wouldn’t be happy at Sweetums or a firm or anywhere that wasn’t government. We both know that. Nobody goes through what you went through in Patridge and throws themselves right back in the way you did if they didn’t _need_ to be there. What happens if you start to regret leaving it? What happens to us when I’m the reason you’re not happy? I just- I can’t have you hate me like that.”

“I wouldn’t hate you.”

In the back of her mind she can hear doors slamming and late night arguments she’s not supposed to know about. She closes her eyes and swallows. “You would.”

For some reason, that’s the thing that makes him push away from the table and get up. He doesn’t go far, just half-way across the room, stands there, hand at his forehead, body whipcord taut. And she realizes she’s never seen him like this, she’s seen him frustrated, seen him depressed, seen him manic and unraveling. But this, this quiet, tamped down anger, this throbbing hurt. This is new. And she doesn’t have the first clue what to do for him.

“You don’t know everything, Leslie.” It’s low and quiet and so tightly leashed it makes her fearful of what’s clawing inside him.

“Ben-”

“No. No. You sit there making pronouncements. Telling me what is and what is not a functional relationship. That we somehow don’t make the cut. That the fact that I- that _I love you_ isn’t a valid criterion for making a life decision. And I’m sorry, but how long exactly did your last truly functional relationship last?”

She feels like he’s hit her, like she can’t breathe. “That’s not fair.”

“Neither is making decisions based on your worst assumptions about me.”

“They’re not assumptions.”

“Really?” Ben scoffs.

“I mean, yes they’re assumptions, but they’re not baseless. I’ve seen how this goes. My dad-” she breaks off, unable to continue. Ben puts the pieces together all the same.

“Shit.” He runs a hand over his face, all his previous anger deflated. “Shit. I’m sorry.”

Leslie turns her face away and shrugs. “You didn’t know.”

“Still-” he sighs and sits down on the edge of the bed. “Look, I obviously don’t know the whole story or really any of the story, here. But I do know this: You can’t go through life expecting a repeat of the worst thing that’s ever happened to you. Believe me, it’s no way to live.”

She smiles a little at the admission, because even though she’s still angry, she can remember a time when all Ben did was expect the worst. “Life-coaching according to Ben Wyatt?”

He smiles back. “Life-coaching according to Leslie Knope.”

It’s a tentative, fragile truce. But it’s something. And for moment they just let it rest there, take a breath. Finally Ben looks over at her.

“Leslie, I would _never_ hate you.”

He says it like an absolute truth, and she flinches against her will.

Ben sighs. “Do you really have that little faith in me?”

She shakes her head. “It’s not that.”

“Then what?”

“Sometimes I think you have _too much_ faith in me.”

“Not possible.”

“See you’re doing it again. You keep doing it. Keep putting this responsibility on me. You take a job because I tell you to. You wait because I say we can’t. And now you’ll walk away from everything you’ve worked your whole life for if I just ask you to stay? That’s not fair. It’s not fair to you, and it’s not fair to me. I can’t- I can’t fix your life for you, and it’s not fair to ask me to try.”

Ben presses his mouth into a thin line and looks at her. Hard. And there it is again, that quiet, tightly checked anger that says she’s landed a blow she never intended.

“It’s not broken.”

“What?”

“My life. It’s not broken. I’m not saying it was perfect before I came to Pawnee, and I’m not saying I don’t like it better now because god knows I do, but- Leslie, I’m not asking you to fix me. I don’t need to be fixed.”

“No. That’s not-” Except, yeah, that had been exactly what she meant. Because whatever Ben says, this person that he is now, this happier, more open person, is so much better than the man who came twelve months ago.

Only now she can’t help but wonder if that’s arrogance, if she’s giving herself and Pawnee too much credit. If maybe he’s always been there somewhere below the surface, and all it took was getting to know him.

“I’m sorry. I just- I don’t understand what you want from me.”

“Is the fact that I want to be with you really that hard to understand?”

“But to give up everything.”

“Not everything. I keep telling you. People do this. They make compromises. It’s how love works.”

“Then why aren’t you asking me to come to South Bend?”

Startled, Ben eyes fly up to meet hers, and she knows. Knows they both know the answer. He didn’t ask because she wouldn’t come. Because her job, her home, her life, it was never on the table. And she thinks there’s something horribly inequitable about that. Something too off-kilter and imbalanced to allow a foundation for anything strong. And she wonders if there’s something wrong with her that she’s not brave enough to change that.

“Leslie-” he’s pleading, but his voice is so tired. And they can’t keep doing this. They’re going to kill each other if they keep doing this.

“The Mayor’s asked me to run for City Council. They’re worried about scandals.” It’s out of her mouth before she really decides to say it. And she knows Ben can hear the unspoken part. He’s a scandal, or at the very least the appearance of one. Even if he left the city manager’s office tomorrow, there would be questions. It’s the knockout punch, the coup de grace, an unseen attack that ends everything in one swift sure stroke.

Except there’s no real winner here.

Ben just sits there, eyes closed, head bent, everything in his posture entirely defeated. Leslie doesn’t think she’s ever hated herself more in her entire life.

Finally, he whispers. “Is this the part where I’m supposed to say congratulations?”

“No,” she shakes her head, feeling the start of tears sliding down her face, “This is the part where I’m supposed to say I’m sorry.”

* * *

 


End file.
